


In The Moonlight

by Meme_Witch



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan
Genre: Abandoned Building, Bands, Breaking and Entering, Concert, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Homelessness, Hope you like it!, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Intimacy, Late at Night, Memories, Music, Pre-The Sword of Summer, adrian and natalie are only referenced but theyre important, soft vibes, somber, tho you can only notice the adrian stuff if youre looking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 06:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meme_Witch/pseuds/Meme_Witch
Summary: Magnus goes to a concert, in memory of his mother.





	In The Moonlight

It was the summer after my mom had died, and The National was in town playing at an outdoor venue in a park just outside Boston. They were a favorite band of hers, and I really wanted to go see them so that I could feel close to her again, if only for a little while.

I didn't have the money to buy myself food for lunch that day, let alone any concert tickets, but I decided to try and go see them anyway despite my total lack of money (you know, by trespassing) because seeing them and feeling connected to my mom in any way at all was just an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

The sun was going down when I got into the park that evening after a whole lot of walking, and I tried my best to find a good way to sneak into the venue where the concert was held with what daylight was left. But I was quickly very discouraged, as, unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any way at all for me to just easily walk my way in.

The venue was located at the bottom of a hill and all stairways leading down to the seating and stage were closed off by high barriers to prevent vagrant kids like me from sneaking in.

Security guards were patrolling around the area with flashlights, I think I even spotted a guard dog or two. Yikes. Spending time around high security was never a good time for someone like me.

It was around 7-8pm by the time I realized I wouldn’t be getting past them, and the sky was getting really dark. I knew the concert was about to start- and I still wasn’t inside, but I didn't want to give up just yet, I wasn’t ready to just go home, I wanted to hear them play, I wanted to hear the songs my mom sang in the car and the tunes I’d accidentally caught myself humming when thinking of her.

I wandered around the park for a bit, and eventually came to the top of a hill that was facing the concert at the bottom, where I found an old looking building nestled between the barrier that had been blocking my way. It was locked and chained shut, and I wasn’t exactly cut out to break the doors open- physical strength was never my best attribute.

So I looked around a bit trying to figure out how I could get inside, and, as luck would have it, I spotted an open window up above the doors that I figured I would just about fit through. I hurried and grabbed a nearby garbage can, not taking the chance of anyone spotting me if I meandered around, and quickly got myself up on top of it so I could climb inside.

It was a tight fit, and I kicked the garbage can out from under me as I pushed myself inside, but I made it without a scratch.

When I got myself all the way inside and had stopped coughing from all the dust I had kicked up, I looked around and saw that the room was was lined with broken mirrors and cobwebs, and that scraps of cloth were scattered across the floor.

The building was pretty demolished on the inside, and it was pitch black once you stepped away from the window, so there wasn't any light inside to guide me. I was getting nervous, but I pushed forward and felt my way through many rooms, until I finally managed to find a view on the other side of the building where I could see out of the dark building, through a moonlit window, to the stage of the concert.

And then, to my absolute terror, I realized I wasn’t alone. There was a figure peering through a doorway to my left, and I pretty much accepted my death then and there. Goodbye world.

Turned out though, the shadowy figure wasn’t there to kill me, they were just as frightened as I was by our sudden encounter- they collected themselves far faster than I did though, and asked cautiously if I had snuck in here for a better view of the concert too.

I said yes, and the figure stepped out of the doorway past me to the other side of the room. It was dark, dark enough that you couldn’t distinguish two faces right in front of your own from each other, but I could see that they were about my age, and that they had pink hair. It… almost shimmered out of the otherwise muted darkness of the moonlit room.

As I admired their hair, I could hear the opening act, some local cover band I think, start to play a song. I recognized it, but I didn’t know the name.

‘...Why does the sun go on shining?  
Why does the sea rush to shore?  
Don't they know it's the end of the world…’

I liked the lyrics, but a screeching sound very abruptly distracted me from the music, and I almost jumped out of my skin before I noticed the pink haired kid was dragging a chair to the window- apparently they’d scavenged it from some back room.

They it sat it down right in front of the window, and apologized to me, saying there wasn’t another one, but that we could share so we could both get to see. It seemed a bit awkward to share a single chair with a stranger in a dark and decrepit building in the middle of the night, but I wanted to see the band play too so I didn’t decline. As I sat down next to the other kid, I heard the first song ending and a second song, by a different group, begin shortly after it.

‘...There is a house in New Orleans  
They call the Rising Sun  
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy  
And God I know I'm one…’

I knew that one but I didn’t know where from, It was called ‘The House of Rising Sun’ though, which, well, you can kind of guess just by hearing the song, but trust me, I’d heard it somewhere else before.

It was kind of chilling, haunting in a way, to be sitting in that old abandoned building, shattered glass on the floor around me, a pink haired stranger at my side, and live music filtering it’s way through the window into the room around us.

We didn’t talk- we didn’t have anything to talk about anyway, we just listened. And eventually, the main event came on stage.

I didn’t know the band members names, I wasn’t super into The National or anything, they were just one of those bands my mom always used to put on the radio, you know? A mom band. So I didn’t recognize any faces. But when the lead singer spoke, I recognized his voice immediately.

And when he began to sing? Well, it sent shivers down my spine. I hadn’t heard a song by this band since before my mom died. The sad familiarity of the music coated me in a homesick and somber sort of nostalgia.

“...Oh, when I lift you up you feel  
Like a hundred times yourself  
I wish everybody knew  
What's so great about you…”

Occasionally I caught myself or my pink haired companion softly singing along, but we mostly just stayed quiet and listened. It almost seemed like their reason for being there was one just as sad as my own. Like they’d lost someone who loved the band too. I don’t know. Maybe they had.

We grew more comfortable with each other in that dark room as we sat and there and listened to more and more songs, and at one point I realized we’d leaned our heads on one another as we sat listening- I almost pulled away, but then I realized they didn’t mind, and I realized I didn’t mind either, so I left my head there, and kept listening. I even closed my eyes for a bit.

It was a sense of intimacy I had really never felt before, in a demolished room just the two of us alone with The National playing "I Need My Girl".

“...I am good, I am grounded  
Davy says that I look taller  
But I can’t get my head around it  
I keep feeling smaller and smaller  
I need my girl  
I need my girl…”

The whole thing, the concert, the dark room, the pink haired kid, the moonlight softly dancing across the floor… it was chilling, daunting, and absolutely beautiful.

I’m not sure how I was brave enough to sit there in that dark room through the night, I have no idea what was going through my head, because I definitely kept hearing a lot of creepy and unnerving noises throughout the building, even though it was just the two of us alone.

There were times in between songs or verses where we would break our silence and ask the other "did you see that?" And the other would reply no, that they hadn’t, just for reassurance, even though I’m pretty sure we both knew we saw something out of the corner of our eyes.

Eventually the concert came to a close with a final encore, and the band started playing a song I didn’t recognize. I don’t think it was their song, a cover probably, because it sounded different from all the rest.

“...Standing on the moon  
With nothing else to do  
A lovely view of heaven  
But I'd rather be with you...”

It was a long song, but a good one, and when it ended and the band left the stage, I think most of the people down below probably felt ready to leave and stretch their legs a bit. But I couldn’t relate, I never ever wanted the soft, somber, nostalgic, intimate moment I had been experiencing these past few hours to end.

But it had to end, and the kid I shared the chair with must have come to terms with that quicker than I did, because after a woeful sort of sigh, they took their head off mine, got up out of our shared seat, and did a few half-hearted stretches.

I wiped some tears from my eyes, and then did the same. It was getting later into the night, and I couldn’t even see the pink of their hair anymore, as the moon had found it’s way past our window and to the other side of the building. All I could make out was a vague presence of them standing next to me.

And then I heard that presence digging around on the floor, then they’d grabbed my arm, and tied a dirty scrap of cloth to my wrist. Any other night, I would have jerked away from being suddenly grabbed, but this night had been different from most, so I just asked what they were doing, and the pink haired kid told me it was to remember them by- because this was a night worth remembering.

And then they asked me to tie a scrap of cloth onto them in turn. I did.

Then the kid said goodbye, I heard them walk toward the window, and suddenly, as though they had simply vanished into thin air, I was alone in the dark with nothing but some distant fireflies filling the empty space left behind by the concertgoers below to light up the night for me.

I carefully made my way back through the building to the window I’d climbed in through, and climbed right back out. I considered sleeping in the building that night, but decided against it after considering the creepy noises and disappearing kid.

But I’ll never forget that night. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and I’ll always think back to those few hours in that dark building with that pink haired kid as, honestly, for all it’s somber nostalgia, probably the very best moment in my life since the night my mom died.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it? 
> 
> -hannah
> 
> ps idk a thing about the national besides those song lyrics i looked up but,,, i big feel like it works as a band natalie chase could be into


End file.
